A California judge’s recent dismissal of a class-action lawsuit against McDonald’s backed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is only the latest in a series of court defeats for the nation’s food police. Unfortunately for California taxpayers, the frivolous suit that argued that Happy Meal toys made kids fat clogged their court system for the more than a year.
Turning back the clock, other courts have found CSPI’s nanny-knows-best lawsuits to be baseless. We can now add the McDonald’s victory over the “Morose Meal Mandate” to CSPI’s Hall of Legal Shame:
- CSPI sued Denny’s over the salt content of its foods; a New Jersey court tossed the claim.
- CSPI filed a suit against Burger King over trans fats; a D.C. court found it invalid.
- CSPI also sued KFC over trans fats, only for CSPI to bail and a federal judge to throw the suit out.
We’ll ignore for the moment that CSPI’s own Nutrition Action Healthletter once reported: “All told, the charges against trans fat just don’t stand up.” Really, when CSPI resorts to suing over kids’ toys and making hay about caramel coloring, it’s indicative of a steady decline towards irrelevance.
CSPI might take the cake, but it’s by no means alone. The so-called “Physicians Committee” for Responsible Medicine (only ten percent of its members have M.D.s) has also wasted the American judicial system’s time with frivolous anti-food litigation. (Perhaps they’ve realized most Americans won’t go vegan without a court order.)
So why do the activists keep tying up taxpayers’ money and courts’ time? Preposterously large amounts of cash for some, fifteen minutes of fame for others. Either way, consumers lose, and taxpayers get the bill.
